Virtual Reality can relieve phantom limb pain

If an arm or leg is amputated, due to an accident or illness, 8 out of 10 patients feel pain in the missing part of the body after the amputation. This phenomenon is called phantom limb pain and it is often explained as a change in the brain’s mapping of the body and the way that the brain processes the lack of information from the missing limb. Research results now indicate that virtual reality can deceive the brain to believe that it is still in contact with the missing limb and thus relieve the phantom limb pain.

Read more about the research within phantom limb pain and virtual reality (in Danish) and see the video about the research project.